To Contest or to not Contest: That is the question. By Susan Payne
TO CONTEST OR NOT TO CONTEST – THAT IS THE QUESTION!
by Susan Payne
There comes a time in all writer’s lives when they look at their work and ask – is this any good or am I fooling myself?
Family and friends are usually too supportive to tell the honest truth and that is if they actually know it. So many times, people are thrilled to be close to an author and accept anything a friend writes as ‘good enough to print’. I suppose that’s why contests began. Being graded by a group of your peers or better yet, agents and publishers, was worth paying the entry fee and jumping through the hoops sometimes required to submit.
The first 1000 to 5000 words was the easy part. Making sure the entry fit all the criteria was the next hurdle. Is it in the correct font? The right spacing? When you switched it from doc to wp did it add lines or goof-up tabs? At one time, your submission would be tossed out on such little technicalities.
Then there was the dreaded synopsis. Take a manuscript you’d been working on for months (or years) and cut it down to several concise paragraphs that tell what your entire story is. Don’t leave anything important out…but put it all into 1-3 pages that will attract a publisher’s attention and win a chance to submit to them.
After spending a goodly amount of time with the above, you could mail it in. Now it is done e-mail only. Then you waited. And sometimes waited longer until three people had read it and put in their opinions.
Winning sometimes depended on how many others entered a contest, how many wrote in your genre, and how cranky the judges felt on any one day. I mean this is going in front of people. Some more set in their ways than others. I found that of the three judges for any one contest – two of them liked me and the third hated everything from the title (which is often changed by the publisher anyway) to the heroine’s name. Yup. Got downgraded because the judge evidently lost a boyfriend to a girl with a similar name back in high-school so couldn’t stand to see the name. Because of the often disparaging grades, a fourth judge would be dragged in and my work would end up in a middle. Not worthy to pass on yet not quite dumped either.
But I thought the critiques would be helpful. After all, that is what I paid for. Not so much. I was reprimanded for writing a character who was offered a ‘cool beverage’. The judge felt compelled to tell me how ice wasn’t available until after the date of my book, except by train and yada-yada. I hadn’t offered ice nor was it suggested. On a hot day, a jar of lemonade stored in the well would be cooler. Usually in the 60s so would seem refreshing on a 90+ degree day. I mean the beverage wasn’t even accepted and so wasn’t part of the story in any other way. That was the only comment from that judge. It seemed judges often didn’t know what to write which left me without a reason for spending the time and money.
I know the first round is often done by members of the club running the contest and these are volunteers. That may be a problem – you get what you pay for. But I had put my hopes in learning about myself as a writer. The error of my ways pointed out so that I could learn to correct them and not continue to repeat mistakes of the past.
What I found was that what one judge disliked another would mention in glowing terms. Often the highlight of her read. Hmm.
What I found was that putting work in front of judges is a good way to get used to having others read your work and comment. It doesn’t make them right. It doesn’t make them the end-all or be-all for any writer. Not everyone will love your voice – but not everyone will hate it either.
I no longer enter contests such as those. I may enter a work in a nationally run contest but my readers are my best judges. Those who put their money toward reading my work. Those are the people I hope I never let down. Those are the ones who I want to shine for. I wish to entertain and make them look forward to my next book.
If you are a writer, I wish you the best. There is always room for more views, more stories, more entertainment. I was and still am a reader first so I appreciate every writer’s work. It may be my best method of learning what’s good.
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